Micro car vs. Macro car

What you see on those car commercials on TV isn’t exactly true. Not all Europeans drive those fancy muscular hyper-cars. The vast majority drive what is known as a “micro car”. Micro cars are designed to take up as little space as possible and as eco-friendly as possible, relatively inexpensive and, by American standards, very slow. They have more in common with a phonebooth on wheels than the sexy sports cars you see on the advertisements.

Macro cars are those cars on the adverts. They are out of reach for the average euro-citizen not only because of the cost of purchasing the vehicle, but also because of the permits needed. Macro cars usually take four micro car parking spaces, so you need a permit from the city authorities to own one, and the pollution permits are expensive as well. The archetypical owner of a macro car is a young corporate male.